Light Dragons 01 - Love in the Time of Dragons

Brom looking shocked before lashing out at me with her legs, taking me down in a sort of scissor move.
    “Tell her!” Baltic growled, shaking Gareth like he was a rag doll. “Tell her the truth!”
    “There’s nothing to tell,” Gareth gasped, his face bright red as he struggled to get air into his windpipe.
    Ruth punched me in the eye, snapping my head backwards, causing me to see little white stars for a moment. “Let go of him!” she yelled again, and abandoning me, threw herself onto Baltic’s arm.
    “Oh man,” Jim said, strolling over to peer down at where I lay dazed. “That’s going to leave a shiner. Hey, I can see down your top. That’s a sun symbol on your boob, huh?”
    Brom joined him. “Looks like it. Is that a tattoo?”
    The twinkly white stars started to fade and I became aware of the fact that Jim had its nose about half an inch away from my left breast.
    “Naw, it’s a dragon mark. Pretty. Kind of Celtic looking with all those swirly bits on the sun’s rays.”
    “Ack!” I yelled, shoving the demon back.
    “Hello! I am not a piece of furniture,” it said as I used it to get to my feet. “You grab my coat like that, you’re going to rumple my fur! Aw, man! You did rumple it! Now I’m going to need brushing.”
    “Get off him, get off him!” Ruth was chanting as she threw all her weight into Baltic’s arm in an attempt to break his grip on Gareth.
    Baltic shot a look at her and set her hair on fire.
    “Eeek!” She ran screaming away, slapping at her head.
    “Fires of Abaddon! What I wouldn’t give for a camcorder! That scene alone would have made us the hit of YouTube!” Jim said, watching Ruth run in a circle, beating her head.
    “Baltic, stop it!” I said, limping over to him, my left eye starting to swell. “I know you don’t like Gareth—at this point, I don’t like him, either—but that’s no reason to kill him. He’s got to stay alive so I can divorce him. A widowhood just wouldn’t be nearly as satisfying.”
    “You can’t divorce him because you’re not married to him,” Baltic snarled, giving Gareth another shake before releasing the hold on his neck.
    Gareth crumpled to the ground, one hand clutching his neck, gasping for air.
    “Why do you keep saying that?” I asked, gingerly touching my eye. I could barely see out of it.
    Baltic strode over to Ruth, grabbing her by the back of her collar and frog-marching her over to me. “Tell her,” he demanded, giving Ruth a shove forward.
    Ruth and I had never been the best of friends; indeed, she barely tolerated Brom’s and my presence, but the look she shot me now was pure loathing. “He’s not your husband. He’s mine.”
    My mouth dropped open.
    “Hoochiwawa,” Jim said, whistling. “I didn’t see that coming.”
    “Gareth’s married to Ruth?” Brom asked.
    “You’re married to him? You’re not his sister?” I touched my head, wondering if I’d hit it harder than I imagined when Ruth knocked me to the ground. “Are you sure? Gareth just told me a few days ago we’d been married for ten years.”
    She gave a choked little laugh as she squatted next to Gareth, who lay still struggling to breathe. “After five hundred years, I think I would know my own husband.”
    “Five hundred . . . oh my god. Dr. Kostich was right. He is immortal. But . . . why did he marry me, too?”
    “He had to, you stupid twit! He had no other choice but to marry you when you suddenly decided you wanted to marry a mortal.”
    Beyond me, Baltic growled.
    I kept my eyes fixed on Ruth. “I wanted to marry someone so Gareth married me instead? It was the gold, wasn’t it? That’s why he did it.”
    “Of course it was,” she snarled. “We couldn’t let anyone else have it, could we? And then you wouldn’t stop talking about having a child, and my poor darling had to play stud to your mare. But he hated every minute of it! He told me so repeatedly!”
    I digested this, my emotions tangled with anger and fury and hurt and quite a bit of confusion. “But . . . how did you know that Gareth was married to Ruth?” I asked Baltic.
    “Ruth is the sister to the one who resurrected me,” he answered, glaring at her as he moved over to stand next to me.
    “If you’re really married to him, then—” I glanced at Brom, and for the second time in a few minutes, rage whipped through me.
    “Ouch. You know, even immortals can suffer from brain damage,” Jim said, leaning over my shoulder as I whomped